Tone assimilation by Mandarin and Thai listeners with and without L2 experience

Abstract

Evidence indicates that perceptual assimilation of segments is tied to L1 and L2 contrasts at a lower phonetic level for listeners without L2 experience, but at both a phonetic and a higher phonological level for those with L2 experience. It is less clear, however, that the same is true for suprasegmental features. In this examination of perceptual assimilation of lexical tones, 40 listeners, whose L1 and L2 are one of the two tone languages, Mandarin and Thai, along with another 40 native listeners of the two tone languages without L2 experience performed a mapping-rating assimilation task in which they first identified which L1 tone sounded most similar to the L2 tone they heard, and then rated the goodness of match on a 5-point scale. The inexperienced listeners assimilated L2 tones to L1 tones with the most similar acoustic properties, i.e., F0 height and contour. The experienced listeners were additionally influenced by phonological tone changes in Mandarin. In particular, falling rising tones were assimilated to the rising tone or low falling tone in Mandarin or Thai and vice versa. These findings are discussed in relation to current conceptions of perceptual assimilation.